Reporters exiting Stephanie White‘s pregame press conference ahead of the Indiana Fever’s first game against the Portland Fire Wednesday were unexpectedly greeted by Carla Leite. The 5’9″ guard was just outside the room, stretching against a resistance band wrapped around her waist as a member of the team’s staff pulled against her. Leite, who was picked up by the Fire as part of the team’s expansion draft this year, is no stranger to the WNBA, and she’s once again reinventing herself with a new team โ and she’s doing things her way.
The fearlessness reinvention requires is just baked into who Leite is, French basketball coach Franรงois Gomez told The IX Sports. Gomez, who coached Leite when she played for Tarbes Gespe Bigorre, explained, “Carla was very mature and ready to play at our best level. She was very compeititive with a plan for career.”
He added affectionately, “She had a strong character, sometimes too much. But in two seasons, she transformed her relationship with the others and used this personality trait as a strength.”
A fiery alignment is already in place
Leite’s personality is aligned with the Fire’s collective team mentality. From day one, head coach Alex Sarama has made it clear the team operates uniquely within the league. His team has begun to embrace that mentality, something he described as “really cool” while speaking to reporters during training camp.
Ahead of the Fire’s first game of the regular season, Sarama explained part of his plans for the team: “So, it’s kind of like putting them in situations where they don’t know what’s happening next.” Instead of running the same plays until they’re perfect, Sarama will do something like stop practice completely and present a brand-new scenario.
Sarama’s goal as a coach has been to impart the need for flexibility and adaptability, as well as emphasizing a team-oriented approach to the game. While speaking to reporters before the team’s May 9 match against the Chicago Sky, GM Vanja ฤernivec explained the impact European players like Leite (whom she also worked with on the Golden State Valkyries) will have on the team.
“I think number one is they play on a professional level, right? I mentioned that they play against women, so the league and the pressure in the games they play is a little bit higher,” ฤernivec said. “But I think it’s also the development … it’s more team oriented, high basketball IQ, it’s not just individual skill sets. So I think that’s because that’s how Alex and the coaching staff want to play. Maybe that’s where we were more attracted to those skill sets and kind of characteristics in the player.”
For Gomez, that’s also exactly the type of basketball Leite should be playing. “She loves the pressure situation, and she can play her best basketball in those moments,” he said. “She is a fighter and she is never afraid. She thinks she can play the best opponents and dominate them. For me, she is the X factor.”
Part of that attitude may have been due to the influence of Gomez himself, French journalist Amaury Perdriau (who has been writing about women’s basketball in the country for years) told The IX Sports. Gomez, who also coached 2025’s No. 2 draft pick Dominique Malonga, teaches the hard way, Perdriau explained. “He makes young players responsible for their basketball and take responsibilities throughout the games.”
Another part of it may well just be because of how European players are raised in the gym. The Belgian Julie Vanloo, who played alongside Leite on the Golden State Valkyries for part of the 2025 season, knows a thing or two about what that’s like. Young European players are often pitted against women in their 20s and 30s from the time they are teenagers, something that doesn’t really happen in the American game.
“I think the fear, the fearless that we have in our game … we’ve been put through it since we were very young,” she told The IX Sports ahead of the New York Liberty’s first game in Portland this month. “We’ve been in this professional station, sometimes since we were 16 or 17 years old, and I think we already played against people that are older than us, stronger than us, bigger than us, and I think that doesn’t [make us afraid]. So that comes with a fearless attitude. Carla is a perfect example of fearlessness.”
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Leite’s future in France is bright
Leite is currently focused on two goals: succeeding in the WNBA for the Portland Fire and pursuing the highest reaches the French national team can offer her. Perdriau said that the French team will likely be made up of more or less the same players who won the Olympic silver medal in 2024, when Gabby Williams opted to play for France.
“You had so many young talents that everyone was trying to get … we might be the only team actually in the world that could be able to beat the American team someday,” he said. “I’m pretty sure that this team is going to be convinced it can win against the Americans in Los Angeles.”
In France, Leite has often been compared to the New York Liberty’s Marine Johannes. The pair have had different paths to basketball: Johannes began playing at age 8 at Pont-l’รvรชque before moving on to USO Mondeville, where she won the U17 French league in 2011 and 2012 and the U17 French Cup in 2012. She joined Bourges not soon after and became part of something of a dynasty (the club won the French Cup in 2017, 2018, and 2019, and Johannes was named Best Guard in the EuroLeague after the 2018-19 season).
Leite, on the other hand, played a lot of sports as a kid, including soccer and tennis. She “started to get serious” about basketball when she was 13, when she began playing for Pรดle dโAntibes, a youth club in Antibes, France, before eventually ending up in Tarbes. Her international debut for France came at the U20 European Championship, where she averaged 18.4 points and 4.3 assists on 48.5% shooting from three, was named MVP, and helped the country win the gold medal.
The decision to play in Tarbes came down to a vision she had for her career, Leite told Ouest France in 2023. A translation of her interview with the news outlet reads, “I wasn’t interested in just training with the pros … I wanted to play in the league! Tarbes is known for fielding young players. I thought it was the best place to develop and get some playing time.”
Watching Leite develop was a lot of fun, Perdriau recalled. “She was this fierce player, she wasn’t afraid of anything โ trying to go to the basket, getting contacts, and [she] wasn’t afraid to shoot the three,” he said. “And I always, always saw her falling down on the floor.”
Of the Leite-Johannes comparisons, he offered, “Carla is like a young, almost new version … a different version, because she’s grown.”
Leite also once told Perdriau that her role model is Kyrie Iriving. “She watched the NBA, she watched the WNBA,” he said. “She had more access to basketball younger than most of the players we know today, or the experienced players we know today, have had. So I think she’s actually coming into the WNBA for her second year at the right time, because the WNBA [is expanding].”
League expansion provides more opportunities for more players to make and stay on rosters, something Leite and other international players are benefitting from. The new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) also means those players are making more money while doing so.
“It’s going to have more and more players coming in, and she’s going to play against the best players in the world for a few months,” Perdriau continued. “And I think her career is going to be dedicated to the WNBA.”
It was Gomez who impacted Leite the most, even pushing her toward the turning point that launched her basketball career in earnest. “Franรงois Gomez was the first coach in the professional world who believed in me!” Leite told The IX Sports via email. (Her written responses have been translated from French using Google Translate.) “He trusted me and gave me a great deal of responsibility on the court; thanks to that, I was able to progress rapidly.”
But Leite stopped short of saying that for herself. When asked about any goals relating to the French national team and the 2028 Games, she answered, “I have a lot of goals in mind, but for now, I prefer to just focus on the present moment โ specifically, being the best player I can be for Portland to achieve the best possible collective result.”
Then, as a nod to other possibilities, Leite added, “And, of course, I would love to participate in the World Cup in September.”
The Portland Fire and beyond
The transition from the Golden State Valkyries to the Portland Fire came as a surprise to Bay Area fans, who grew to love Leite in the short time she was on the team. Leite, who was drafted as the 9th overall pick by the Dallas Wings in 2024, averaged 7.2 points, 1.3 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game in 37 minutes on the court for the Valkyries, and her impact extended far beyond what happened in a game. She was also one of seven rookies who racked up 250+ points, 40+ rebounds and 70+ assists.
โGrowth is rarely easy, especially in a league finding its footing, and, it is essential,โ said Valkyries general manager Ohemaa Nyanin at the time (the team also lost Marรญa Conde to the Toronto Tempo this year). โThe expansion draft reflects that progress, a necessary step toward something bigger than any one team. We will forever be grateful to every player who willingly chose to build with us, whether from the Bay or from afar, in year one; their commitment laid the foundation of Ballhalla. Carla and Marรญa are part of our canvas, and we are thankful for their impact. We wish them nothing but the best as they continue their journey.โ
But that move hasn’t been difficult for Leite, who seems to have a habit of endearing herself to fans no matter where she goes. For her, the city of Portland provides a lot of opportunity to explore a new home.
“The move to Portland went really well,” she said. “Iโm thrilled to be with this new franchise. I havenโt really had much time to explore the city yet, but from the little Iโve seen, it looks cool!”
To that end, adapting to your surroundings is the name of the game in Portland, Sarama told reporters during training camp. “I think we really want to show to the W the things we’re doing here in Portland are unique from how we play and having a really clear, intentional style of play that players want to be part of,” he explained.
Playing a different kind of basketball also requires a certain kind of confidence, ฤernivec said, and that’s something Leite also learned while at Golden State. “You know, every news article that you read that, we see ourselves in the bottom. It sparks something in us, and I think the Thorns (Portland’s NWSL team) are going through the same thing. I think they’re also very undervalued.”
“The Valkyries, last year, set a standard,” she continued, “not just for the expansion team. They set a standard for any team in the W. So I’m glad that we have that measure, but I don’t think if our team doesn’t reach that, I don’t think it’s going to be in any way, the failure.”
To that end, Leite may well but just where she needs to be. Vanloo, who said she met Leite for the first time last season, explained that she was “very shy” at first, but things are different now.
“She’s been fitting right in. It’s not easy,” Vanloo added. “She’s now, again, on a new team. She has a lot of responsibility to take. I think [on] the Valkyries she had a very important role, but I think this year is different. I think she’s really going to carry this team, create a lot of offense, a lot of offense going to go through her hands.”
“We can’t forget that she plays like somebody with a ton of experience. She already played a lot of finals in Europe, so I’m sure she can do it,” Vanloo added. “She’s a bucket. She can do anything she wants.”
Perdriau sees a long history for Leite in the WNBA, though noted she has plans to play in Turkey after the 2026 season concludes. “She told me she wants to win the EuroLeague,” he said. “She’s a really hungry player, and even when she was 20 years old, she wanted to win the EuroCup, she wanted to win the French title, she wants to win and I think that’s the right kind of mentality.”
“And this is why, for example, she was disappointed not to make the Olympic team [in 2024],” he added, “and that’s some sort of chip on her shoulder. She’s going to carry on, and that’s going to feed her hunger for the for the game.”
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